Coffee Protocols, Temples, Sunsets and When and Where to Eat….Again

 Our first days in Athens, Greece have been nothing short of remarkable. Beautiful weather, incredible history, great food—who can ask for more? Well… 

The Greeks we’ve met have been so warm and friendly but even the friendliest Athenian may find us Americans a little odd. Take for example, our first dinner in Athens. We went to a lovely family-run restaurant called Cafe Avissinia that had a rooftop restaurant allowing its patrons to watch the moon rise over the Acropolis. Needless to say, the view was magnificent and we felt lucky to witness this daily event at least once in our lives. We had a lovely dinner, including a bottle of wine, which for my husband, when combined with jet lag and his incredibly low tolerance for liquor, something is bound to happen.

And it did.  

When the meal ended and the bottle was empty, the waiter asked us if we wanted coffee and dessert.  Dessert is never a problem, but we struggle with the coffee order.  First, I am to the point in my life when I can’t drink anything with caffeine past 3 pm if I plan to fall asleep  in the next day or so. Second, there’s the whole nighttime espresso thing. Neither Bob nor I are espresso drinkers—hot ink just doesn’t appeal to us.  But in Europe, drinking something hot other than espresso past 6 pm appears to be a mortal sin. Plus, “decaf” does not appear to translate into any European language, because no restaurant ever has it on its menu.  The second mortal sin is to order a cappuccino past 12 noon.  In one European restaurant, we were told, when trying to order an after-dinner cappuccino, that they couldn’t make it.  The problem was that the machine was in our line of vision!  So, what to order?

My dear husband, with two hours of sleep and three glasses of wine in him told the waiter, that he would like to order a “Cafe Avissinia.”  He saw the name on the menu and thought it was  the restaurant’s specialty coffee.  The waiter looked puzzled, and said, “Excuse me?”  My husband repeated his request and, when the waiter continued to look puzzled, finally pointed to the menu, thinking that was his choice brew.  The waiter paused for a moment and said (without laughing), “Sir, that is the name of the restaurant and our address.”  We all laughed and my husband, shrank and proceeded to drink a double espresso. 

Yesterday, after spending the day in the “Agorra,”  Athens’ ancient gathering place, we decided to visit the Temple of Poseidon at sunset. We were told that all we needed to do was hire a a driver for the 40 minute drive to witness another beautiful Grecian sunset.  With the help of the lovely people at our hotel’s front desk, we met our young driver, Nikos and we were on our way.

I don’t know if time moves more slowly here, but that was no 40 minute ride. Granted, there was some traffic leaving the city but the drive seemed like an eternity.  Maybe that was because I spent the whole time fearing for my life, as our man, Nikos was zig-zagging between lanes, clocking 93 miles per hour.  Fortunately before we took off, my sea-bands made this trip’s first appearance  and were conveniently located around my wrists.  Finally, we all got out of the car as if we had already drank a bottle of wine and began ascending to the temple.  

We had about an hour to kill before the 7:42 sunset, and consequently we had two things we needed urgently needed to discuss:

1. What and when should we eat?  Other than the many discussions we have had about the beauty of this city, the second thing we’ve discussed most is how we have been in a constant state of fullness. To put it bluntly, we have not missed a meal since our plane’s wheels touched down at Athens Airport.  Yet somehow, amidst all of this beauty, when we were next eating consumed both our thoughts and conversation.  Should we run down the hill to find a taverna?  Would we be able to see the sunset from the restaurant? Would Nikos wait for us if we ate at the taverna afterwards? What if we paid for his dinner? After much discussion, we decided to wait.

2. Where should we stand?  I will admit that I was never good at the whole, “Which way is north?” “Which way will the sun set?” Since I had no idea of the temple’s direction, I had even less idea where the sun would set in relation to that temple.  Nevertheless, I still had an opinion, and so did Bob and our friends.  We seemed to put our eating quandary aside for a few minutes to discuss with some passion, where we (along with the other 500 people) could take the best photo of the temple as the sun set.  My dear husband, decided to “trust the science” and got out his phone out so that he could determine the spot by using his compass app! In the end, none of it mattered because we moved from one place to another and nearly every picture was perfect.

And by the way, Nikos waited for us to eat afterwards—and he enjoyed his meal too!